


l'appel du vide

by lavitanuova



Series: this place is not a place of honour [1]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Love Never Dies - Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Ghosts, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavitanuova/pseuds/lavitanuova
Summary: mother, please, i'm scared!what a dream! an awful dream!someone strange and mad,seizing me and drowning me!"What are you talking about? I'd never hurt Christine." The girl leapt to her feet, voice trembling, backing away.The woman only sighed. "You wouldn't. I would. So many things can change in ten years."
Relationships: Christine Daaé & Meg Giry
Series: this place is not a place of honour [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831657
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	l'appel du vide

**Author's Note:**

> i am so tired it is one am i do not want to look at this or think about this fic ever again in my life pls inform me if there are typos thank you

The girl was ten years old when she first saw the sea. It was not a particularly cheery day- the sky gunmetal-grey, the waves lashing at the craggy rocks. The wind had tangled her hair to resemble a madwoman's as she gazed out across the almost-opaque ocean. How easy it would be to fall in!- she thought, and then shivered. She was not, normally, the most morbid of girls, and the thought scared her. She'd recalled a phrase she once heard in a song. L'appel du vide. The call of the void. The call of a dark, unknown future, filled with death and betrayal and tragedy most of all. 

Perhaps she was feeling that same emotion now. Moonlight slanted through the windows of the ballet dormitories, illuminating the half-mask that she held in her hand. Cool. White. Calm. Not for the first time, she wondered why she'd brought it back from the dungeons beneath the opera house, and above that, why she was hiding it from everyone. It seemed secret, somehow, enough for her to keep it away in a box under her mattress, never letting it see the light of day. The police would have liked to see it- they had found no leads on the peculiar case of the Phantom of the Opera- but something told her not to show it to them. 

Footsteps cut through the silence. The girl whirled, instinctively hiding the mask under her covers. The first thought that came to her mind was that one of her fellow corps de ballet was up early- but when she turned, she saw instead a strange woman.

Several things were peculiar about this situation.  
Firstly, the woman wore a soaking dress, long yellow locks falling loose down her back like seaweed, dripping water onto the hardwood floor.  
Secondly, the light seemed to fall directly through her, as if she was a pane of stained glass facing the sun.  
Lastly, when she looked closer- the woman seemed unmistakably to have the girl's own face.

A detachment settled over her then, washing her fears away. She must be dreaming, wasn't she? She must have fallen asleep at some point or other, and now this (phantom) apparition was nothing more than the product of her overimaginative mind. The girl studied the woman as she moved closer, eventually taking a seat beside her on the hard mattress. She didn't resemble the girl much, anyway. Her eyes were too sunken and defeated, her face lined with memory, not age. The woman uncovered the mask from the sheets, and she held it up to the window, a silhouette against the night sky. A jolt in her heart- hadn't the girl done just that, when she'd first stormed through the catacombs to find and free Christine? 

"You'd do anything for her." The woman's voice was fragile and sharp as shattered glass, but there was a hint of familiarity to it. None of the sleeping ballet girls stirred. "She's your best friend in the world, and she always will be."

the girl nodded. She didn't know what else to do.

For the first time, she turned and met the girl's eyes. Her own eyes. Blue as the sea. When she spoke, it was frantic, angry, regretful. "You have no idea the things you'll do. You'll grow to hate her. She'll warp from your best friend to a blur of memory, something you can't hold or catch or see, and you'll pin on her all the troubles of the world. And on a summer night she'll die, and you'll be the one holding the gun-"

The girl leapt to her feet, voice trembling, backing away. "What are you talking about? I'd never hurt Christine."

The woman only sighed, yet again placid as a silent sea. "You wouldn't. I would. So many things can change in ten years." 

"Why are you telling me this?"

"So you can change it. Listen to me." The woman gestured to the empty place beside her, and with apprehension, the girl returned to the bed. "First things first. Tomorrow Mama will tell you a secret that will change your life. She will give you directions to a small cottage in the woods. Keep Christine Daae away from that cottage. For all our sakes. Why this is so is a story for Christine to tell you herself. Perhaps she will, one day. It is better to hear it from her than anyone else. Next. In two weeks, you will make a choice. Mama will tell you that there is fame and glory waiting for you across the Atlantic. Do not believe her."

"Mama would never lie to me," the girl said, suddenly very much a girl. "She's Mama."

The woman gave her a pitying glance, and the girl fell silent. "She will ask her if you want to go with her to America. You've always wanted to go to America, haven't you?"

The United States of America, land of glitz and glory and guts. The girl had heard tales of it, of course. A place where you could go anywhere, do anything, without a black-cloaked spectre of a mother hanging over you. She had always thought herself a decent actress, and perhaps she could act the part of noblewoman sightseer, donning the fanciest of hats and sipping champagne while discussing the stock market or sport or whatever rich American folks talked about. Perhaps then she'd be seen. Perhaps then she'd figure out what life was like outside of the opera house.

"Don't go. Tell her that you'll stay in Paris, tell her that they're going to have to re-learn all the routines without you there. Say anything to stay. And even if she doesn't agree, even if she still pulls you out of bed in those dark hours before dawn, stay."

"Why?" The girl's voice rose. "I can't abandon Mama- I can't. She's always been there for me. Wherever she goes, I'll have to go." Her mind whirled. What would she do without Mama? Who would she be without Mama? All the fantasies she had ever had vanished in the harsh light of reality. She, of course, had forgotten that this whole affair was a dream- there was something inescapably truthful about the woman's words. "What happened in those ten years?" she demanded.

The woman looked at her with tired eyes, and she resembled the girl more than ever (or was it the girl who resembled the woman more than ever?) "Do you really want to know?"

L'appel du vide. The crashing waves. A future unknown, wherever she looked, a great dark gorge before her that she did not know how to cross. Cold, damp hands passed her a mask, and the girl examined it absently, like the girl of ten years before examined the ocean. She ran her hands along its porcelain surface, almost translucent in the moonlight, and thought.

fame-glory-freedom-safety-happiness-hatred-mama-christine, christine, christine.

She, Meg Giry decided, did not want to live in a world where she killed Christine Daae.

And then she was waking, and Sorelli was shaking her and shouting that she was late for rehearsal, and the waves took her dream out with the tide. 

==

Ten years later, she would be stepping into the clear blue water of a Normandy beach. She would wade in deeper and deeper, and when the rock fell away from her feet, she would swim. She would sink until no-one would have known that she was ever there.

But here is the difference: in this world, she would pull herself out of the ocean, shaking salt-water out of her face. She would greet the sun. She would begin to swim back to the shore, back to a world where people loved and cared for her, back to solid ground.

The void would not take her today.


End file.
